34>Mt Mt’IW 18.2003
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Southern gothic
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Marshall Moore digs deep in order to break the surface
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by
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arshall Moore is drawn to dark
stories. “1 like horror,” he says,
“and I want to write about the
horrific experiences people could
have in real life.”
He calls his new Fxxik, The Concrete
Sky, “a trenchant literary thriller with a
Southern accent, a suspenseful black com
edy about murderously inclined Genera
tion Xers with a lot of money.” Excellent.
The soft-spoken Southerner, who just
moved from Portland to Seattle, will read
July 24 at Annie Blooms B<x»ks in Mult
nomah Village.
The Concrete Sky follows Chad and
Jonathan, a pair of troubled young men who
meet and fall in love in a psychiatric hospital.
Like many authors, Mixire borrows bits and
pieces from his own life for his characters.
“But they’re not me,” he claims. “I’ve
been overwhelmed, overeducated, surround
ed by adults and a wise-ass like Chad, but
I’ve also been the instigator that Jonathan
is. 1 see the interaction between the two as a
conversation between two sides of myself."
Mcxire set the novel in a small eastern
North Carolina town not far from where he
Marshall Moore reads from his Southern thriller,
grew up underneath the “concrete sky” in
Greenville. “In the South, the humidity is
The Concrete Sky, July 24 at Annie Blooms Books
so thick and so oppressive that the sky liter-
ally turns a silvery white color,” he explains. His
withdrew,” says the author. “It was really an
hometown is “about two hours away from any
accident. 1 was a troubled 16-year-old with
1986 hair.” He avoided criminal charges by
thing you’d actually want to visit.”
lying well and having a good lawyer—a trick
hen Mtxire was a teen-ager, he was
he also ascribed to Chad and Jonathan.
kicked out of a prestigious high school
The Concrete Sky, he says, is about “mov
for various illegal activities including
ing from a place of being really overwhelmed
setting his dorm room on fire. “Officially 1 by the circumstances of your life and feeling
out of control to getting to a place where you
are finally getting your head above water
again.” Moore understands the trauma Chad
T he C oncrete S ky
experiences when he wakes up in a mental
by Marshall Moore; Harrington Park Press,
hospital suspected of attempting suicide. “It’s
2003; $17 95 hardcover
like having your head down a rabbit
hole...I’ve been through a lot of
■ t the opening of Marshall
what Chad has been through in
A Moore’s The Concrete Sky, a
my childhood. 1 wanted the
■ ■drunken Chad Sobcan tum
novel to show what it was like
bles
a balcony and breaks his
to crawl out and get back into
wrist. His brother, Martin, who has
. some sense of normalcy.”
tormented Chad for being gay since
A
Moore works as a sign lan-
childhood, convinces the emergency
B guage interpreter, a career he
B fell into when he developed a
room doctors that the fell was a sui
R crush on a deaf boy he sat
cidal jump, and Chad wakes up to
find himself locked in the hospital’s
next to in a college Latin
psychiatric unit for observation.
class. It was during an inter-
||B pretation job in a Washing-
In the hospital Chad meets fellow ’
patient Jonathan Fairbanks, who wit
ton, D.C., juvenile hall
nessed the murder/suicide of his
that his future became clear to
wealthy parents and now suffers severe
him. “The kids were given an assignment to
post-traumatic stress. The two hit it off, but
map out where they wanted to be in five
there are questions about Jonathan’s involve
years, and 1 realized that 1 didn’t want to be
ment in the deaths of his parents and two
interpreting in five years... 1 wanted to be a
other hospital patients.
writer.”
Upon his release, Chad is called to the bed
Since that fateful decision, dozens of his
side of his comatose, cancer-ridden mother, who
short stories and essays have been published in
has left him a letter asking him to end her life in
magazines and anthologies. While The Concrete
return for the promise of a financial windfall.
Sky is his first novel, he is already through the
Chad and Jonathan’s romance is a journey
initial draft of a second, Invisible Hand, which is
of psychological tension, intrigue and suspense.
about casinos and the loss of privacy. JH
1545 NE Sandy Blvd
(503) 233-4540
622 NE Grand Ave
(503) 234-2525
Open 8am-8pm M-F • 11am-8pm Sat
Open 8am-7pm M-F
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FOR A GREAT STEAK, LOOK FOR
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EXCEPT IN BEAVERTON.
WHERE THE CITY
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1946 ,,
-
f
O* revolving steak sign has become a landmark ui Portland T
1 sign o] qiutho H here \<>u know you can get a great steak.
HT.fi
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dinner at a fair price L / »fortunately, we couliln J get that same
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home of the 72 02. steak
CO I Y
—
F loyd S klaver
M
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the concrei?
It thoughtfully tackles grand themes like
death, euthanasia, insanity and homophobia
without interrupting tire page-mming story.
Intense and insightful, The Concrete Sky is an
entertaining read for fans of literary fiction.
—FS I
M arshall M oore reads from The Concrete
Sky 7:30 p.m. July 24 at Annie Blooms Books,
7834 S.W Capitol Highway.
F loyd S klaver is a Portland free-lance writer.